


An abundance of bonding moments

by Pryde_of_kittens



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, College, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt Lance (Voltron), M/M, Mostly fluff though, Pining Keith/Lance (Voltron), Protective Keith (Voltron), Sick Lance (Voltron), a little bit?, supportive Space Dad, they're both pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 06:05:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18543817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pryde_of_kittens/pseuds/Pryde_of_kittens
Summary: A whole lot of pining and a whole lot of fluff, paired with two caring almost boyfriends.~Alternatively, Keith and Lance become friends, and then more than friends.





	An abundance of bonding moments

Lance and Keith had been rivals. Always competing and always arguing.

They would argue over seats at gatherings that their mutual friends planned, even though neither of them cared much at all. They would call each other names, make bets on what was supposed to be a friendly game of monopoly, and even do challenges such as who can last the longest without drinking water after downing a shot of hot sauce.

At first it was hostile, but then it became routine. Lance took comfort in the banter he had with Keith, and Keith grew to enjoy Lance’s company. A timid friendship started, one that grew quite quickly after a series of occurrences that strengthened their friendship. Until maybe, it grew to be a bit more than even that.

~~~

Lance was going to die.

Now while that did sound dramatic, it didn’t make the fact any less true. He felt as if he was Atlas, holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Or at least, the weight of his Government grade.

See, Lance had always been bad at memorization. He was smart and resilient, two things he took pride in, so he had a noticeably high GPA. One that he tried very hard to maintain in order to keep his scholarship.

Yet, subjects such as Government and History were always tricky for him. Math, Science, English; these subjects were ones he could figure out. He could solve them and piece bits together in his brain that made the process easier for him. Though, his current Government class was about memorization. Memorize laws and ordinances and dates and senators and organizations and-

His train of thought was interrupted by the thunk of someone's bag landing on the table he was currently dejectedly resting his head on. Somehow, Keith had managed to find him in the back corner of their University’s library, wallowing in his own sorrow.

The thought of Keith seeing him like this sent a spark of fire through his chest. His automatic reaction would have usually been to argue or insult Keith, take the focus off of his stress.

But recently, Lance has been considering Keith as more of a friend than a rival. Therefore, he forced himself to push down his automatic reaction, instead choosing to ask, “Why are you here?”

Keith had situated himself across the table from Lance. He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, “You don’t own this table Lance.”

Lance bit his cheek. So much for playing nice. He didn’t have the energy for this right now.

“Never said I did.” Lance mumbled before placing his head back on the table, closing his eyes, and wishing he had listened to his friends when they told him to take a class with the other Government professor instead. Lance had argued that he’d be fine, the only class the other professor had was an 8 AM, and Lance did not want to go through that suffering.

It’s safe to say that he significantly regretted that decision.

“What’s up with you?” Keith asked, sounding a bit put out that Lance wasn’t in his normal bantering mood.

“I have a test for Government tomorrow, and I’m not ready. I’m going to fail, lose my scholarship, and then I’m going to have to go back home and spend the rest of of my life mooching off my parents.” While Lance’s voice was wobbly, it did _not_ sound like he was going to cry. Absolutely not.

(It did.)

Keith sounded vaguely uncomfortable when he answered, obviously not used to seeing Lance so vulnerable. “You’ll be fine, dude. You’ve been studying for this test since we saw each other last week.”

“I know!” Lance suddenly wailed. He raised his head to look at Keith, and Keith noticed the tired look in his eyes, “That’s the problem! I’ve been studying for this test everyday for over a week, and I still can’t memorize the material!” At this point, Lance rested his head in his hands, partially to try and prevent the onslaught of stressed tears and partially because he was embarrassed to be having a breakdown in front of _Keith_ of all people.

“Lance.” He heard a hard voice say to him. When he looked up, Keith was leaning across the table with a stern look in his eyes. “Stop it. You’re freaking yourself out. You will pass this test, even if I need to stay up all night to help you.” Keith reached over and took Lances notebook, his eyes scanning it determinedly.

“What?” Lance said, a bit surprised by Keith’s kindness. “Why?”

Keith looked up at Lance, then said with a sigh, “Well we are friends, aren’t we?”

Lance suppressed his shock. This is the first time they’d ever really referred to each other as friends as opposed to acquaintances or rivals.

“Of course we are.” Lance answered, just as determined now.

Keith stared at him for a second, before a small smile graced his face. “Okay.”

He placed the notebook in between them, and Lance traced his finger on it as he explained what he needed to memorize.

Keith nodded along before saying, “You need to go about it a different way. You can memorize this information Lance, you just need to do it differently. Try relating the information to something you know, something that you’ll remember during the test.”

Lance furrowed his eyebrow in thought. “So, I can remember that there are less Senators than members in the House of Representatives because Senator is a shorter word, therefore smaller amount of people?”

Keith shrugs, “Anyway you can remember, no matter how weird, will help you on your exam.”

Lance’s eyes lit up, “Oh! I can remember John Calhoun being a terrible senator by remembering that guy named John in our Physics class who was an asshole!”

Keith snorted and shook his head, “Yeah, he was a dick. You can remember Henry Clay running for president four times and losing by that guy named Henry. In that show we watched with Pidge?”

Lance tilted his head to the side, “How is that relevant? Other than the fact that both of their names are Henry.”

Keith looked at him blankly. “Come on. You can’t tell me that you didn’t think that Henry guy was a loser.”

Lance laughed as he remembered Keith’s obvious distaste for the character, “Yeah he was kind of a loser.” The day that the three of them had binge watched the show, Keith had spent a solid ten minutes ranting about how terrible that character was.

For the next few hours Lance and Keith made up fun ways for Lance to remember the information for his test the next day. By the times they were finished it was dark out and their stomachs hurt from laughing too hard.

They gave each other shy smiles as they parted at the entrance of the library, both aware that this was the first time they had ever hung out as friends.

Lance got an A on his test.

~~~

Two weeks after Keith and Lance’s impromptu study session, their friend group decided that another game night was long overdue.

Pidge had been expecting the worst. It was Shiro’s turn to pick the game, and he always chose monopoly. Something about how it strengthened their bond as friends. Pidge knew he secretly enjoyed how worked up everyone got over it.

Lance, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk, in that order, were sitting in a circle around Shiro’s coffee table. The monopoly board was sitting on the table, though no one seemed to be paying any attention to it.

Pidge squinted her eyes in the direction of Keith and Lance. She noticed their relaxed body language and the soft smiles they both wore. She turned to her right, about to confront Shiro about it, but he was already looking at them.

Shiro had that proud dad look in his eye as he watched Keith and Lance’s interaction. His eyes crinkled in the corner as Keith laughed loudly at one of Lance’s jokes, and Pidge could swear she saw him get a little misty eyed.

She blinked, then swerved her body to talk to Hunk instead, who was currently organizing the properties, apparently the only person actually on track.

“Have you noticed that Keith and Lance are being more friendly than usual?” She whispered to him conspiringly.

Hunk glanced up at them, then looked at Pidge with confused eyes, “No?”

Pidge let out an exasperated groan. “Hunk!” She hissed quietly, “They haven’t had one legitimate argument since they got here. Not to mention, when was the last time you saw them sit next to each other willingly?” Pidge looked back at them again, they were now both squished together, their eyes full of laughter as they watched something on Lance’s phone.

“They’re friends Pidge,” Hunk interrupted her, and she tore her eyes away and back to him. “But I guess you’re right. Over the past couple of weeks they do seem to have gotten closer. Good for them. Now maybe we can have a game night without someone traumatized at the end.”

“Oh, there will still be someone traumatized at the end.” Pidge said deviously, letting her queries go. Maybe Keith and Lance had finally set aside their differences and become friends. She’s happy for them.

Throughout the game, Keith and Lance used their mutual competitiveness to their advantage, and they beat the others within the first hour. Fastest game of monopoly they had ever played.

~~

Keith didn’t want to be here. At all. The music was hurting his head, and he could smell the stench of sweat and vomit in the air. A random song with a vaguely impressive amount of bass was blasting throughout the living room.

‘Here’ was some random frat party on campus that Allura had dragged him to. Apparently Keith needed to socialize more. Bullshit, Allura just wanted someone to keep her drunk ass out of trouble. She always got a little wild at these parties.

The moment they arrived Allura disappeared into the kitchen for beer, leaving a brooding Keith at the entrance.

He sighed, then found a nice spot on the wall to lean on and sulk.

After about five minutes of people watching, shooting glares at anyone who tried to come over and talk to him, Keith noticed a familiar face in the crowd.

Keith wasn’t necessarily surprised to see him, Lance had always enjoyed parties like this. What was surprising was seeing Lance drunkenly flirt with a random college student with no hair.

There’s nothing wrong with having no hair. There was just something about this guy that was pissing him off. Maybe it was his obnoxious tie-dye shirt or the fact that he seemed to be perfectly sober, yet okay with flirting with an obviously drunk man.

Or maybe it was the fact that it was _Lance_ flirting with him.

No. Absolutely not. It must be his stupid fucking shirt.

Keith tried to turn his attention to something else, attempting to convince himself he didn’t care that Lance was flirting with some random dude. He spent a full three minutes watching a blonde guy puke in a potted plant, disgusted yet oddly intrigued.

Then, from his peripheral vision, he noticed Lance and Idiotic Bald Dude start to make out. Keith felt the sudden urge to put his fist in the wall.

As Keith had an emotional crisis (why was he so angry?), Lance seemed to notice Keith for the first time. He immediately pulled away from the Idiotic Bald Dude and headed towards Keith, without a word to the former. Bald Dude didn’t seem to like that very much.

“Keith!” Lance squealed happily and threw his arms around Keith.

Keith pried his arms off, instead holding onto his elbow to keep him steady. “You are really drunk.” Keith observed, trailing his eyes over Lance’s dopey face to his wobbling figure.

“And you are very beautiful.” Lance winked at him, then stumbled a bit. Keith felt his face burst into flames, figuratively of course, and coughed in an attempt to cover it.

Before he could reply, Idiotic Bald Dude found his way over to them. “Hey babe,” He greeted Lance, sending a glare at Keith, “Why’d you leave?”

There was silence as Lance stared at him for a second, before saying, “Who even are you?” Then, he burst out laughing, distractedly mumbling something about a kazoo kid.

The bald guy’s eyes blazed for a second, before he visibly forced himself to calm down and grabbed onto Lances arm. “C’mon, lets go.” Lance frowned in his direction as Idiotic Bald Dude started to pull him.

“No.” Keith snapped as he pulled Lance out of the idiot’s grip, situating Lance behind him. He stood protectively in front of Lance, “You heard him. He doesn’t know you. Get lost.”

The guy scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, and countered, “We were making out like three seconds ago.” God, Keith had never wanted to punch someone more than he did right now.

“He’s drunk!” Keith scoffed right back. “He would probably make out with a lamp post right now.”

“His head sort of feels like a lamp post.” Lance mumbled behind Keith, as he quietly traced shapes into Keith’s back. Keith discreetly smacked his hands away, it was distracting.

“Just back off!” The guy spat and made a grab towards Lance, but Keith shoved him back.

“Leave before you start something you can’t finish.” Keith warned, his eyes burning, enraged. Lance wrapped an arm around him from behind.

Lance rested his chin on Keith’s shoulder. “It’s okay Keithy. Let’s go.” Though he didn’t move, seemingly too drunk for that.

Lance had basically molded himself onto Keith’s back, his head lolling on his shoulder. Keith had the fleeting thought of how adorable Lance was, but he pushed it away quickly. Now was not the time. Instead, Keith sent a sharp threatening glare towards Idiotic Bald Dude, who looked scared but attempted to keep his pride.

“Whatever.” He spat, and stormed off in the other direction.

Keith fought the urge to go over and kick his ass, instead turning his attention towards Lance. Keith dislodged Lance from his back, before maneuvering him so Keith could wrap his arms around his waist. “Let’s get you home.” He said softly, leading Lance towards the door.

Somehow, absolutely no one in the living room bothered them as they made their way to the exit. They crossed the living room and reached the door quite quickly, considering the fact that Keith had to basically drag Lance, who was hardly keeping himself upright.

Lance giggled and threw his arm over Keith’s shoulder, leaning into him heavily. “Thanks Keith. He was so creepy.”

Keith had successfully gotten him out of the house, but at that he paused and titled his head towards Lance. “Did he do something to you?” He asked concerned, taking a quick look over Lance.

“Stop checking me out!” Lance playfully scolded and smacked Keith on the shoulder weakly.

Keith ignored it and gently grabbed Lances face, forcing their gazes together. “I’m serious Lance. Did he do something to you?” He repeated.

Lances eyes cleared a bit, his face scrunching up in confusion,”Who, creepy guy? No, he didn’t do anything. We just made out a bit.”

Keith sighed in relief before continuing his trek towards Lance’s dorm with a now half asleep Lance hanging off his shoulder.

Once they arrived at the dorm that Lance shared with two other roommates, Hunk and some dude Keith hadn’t bothered to learn the name of, Keith knocked on the door loudly. He instantly regretted it, remembering just how late it was.

However, Hunk opened the door relatively quickly. Evidently, he hadn’t gone to sleep yet. He was probably waiting for Lance to get home.

“Oh, Keith.” Hunk said in surprised. Then he noticed Lance hanging onto Keith’s shoulder and understanding dawned his eyes. “I can take him from here, if you want?” Hunk offered, making a move to grab Lance.

“No.” Keith said, a bit too forcefully. Hunk furrowed his eyebrows, but Keith clarified. “I’ll take him to bed. Um, if that’s okay?” Keith sounded doubtful at the end, but was met with Hunk’s soft smile.

“Of course it’s okay.” Keith simply nodded, a little embarrassed, and moved past Hunk towards Lance’s room.

“Hey Keith?” Hunk called softly. When Keith turned slightly to indicate he was listening, Hunk continued, “Thanks for taking care of him.”

Keith blinked in surprise, but when he fully turned his head to look at Hunk, he was already walking through the door to his own room.

“Keith!” Lance whined, probably too loudly for the time at night, “Let’s go! I’m tired.”

Keith rolled his eyes as he dragged Lance through his doorway, “Alright Lance, I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Not true.” Lance accused as Keith gently set him down onto his bed.

Keith let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“You love me!” Lance rebuttal drowsily.

“Yeah, I think maybe I do.” Keith mumbled quietly, but Lance had already fallen asleep.

Before he left, Keith set out some Advil and a glass of water on Lance’s nightstand.

~~~

Lance was standing in the shower, his head spinning, and his thoughts full of Keith.

Not in a dirty way! More in a _I think I like my best friend and now I’m having a crisis_ way.

However, his head was spinning for a completely different reason. A reason that consisted of the fact that Lance had been fighting off sickness for the past three days now, and it had finally started to catch up with him.

Standing there, Lance replayed every interaction he’d had with Keith within the past week, sorting through them in his mind to find out when exactly this had happened. To be fair, there was a lot to sort through. Lance and Keith had been spending a great deal of time together recently.

Lance couldn’t help that he enjoyed Keith’s company. He was just so charming in an edgy way, with that stupid mullet that was always styled to be attractively messy. And the way his long eyelashes covered his eyes slightly when he titled his head up at just the right angle.

Okay, maybe this had been going on for longer than a week.

Lance tried to shake his head free of those thoughts, but stopped when his hammering headache returned.

Lance leaned against the wall slightly, closing his eyes as he took a couple deep breaths, willing his dizziness away. He lazily reached behind him to turn the water temperature down, before going back to shaving.

He didn’t care how sick he felt, he was not having half shaven legs.

When he finally finished after what felt like a century, he turned off the water and carefully stepped out of the shower, knowing a fall would make his headache unbearable. He grabbed the restroom doorknob before realizing he had forgotten to wash his face.

He let out a loud groan, not caring if someone heard him through these paper-thin dorm walls.

“Screw it, I’ll wash my face later.” Lance mumbled heatedly, wrenching the door open and letting the steam free, finally breathing clear air. Taking a step in the direction of his wardrobe, he decided it wasn’t worth the effort and instead headed straight towards his bed.

He sat gingerly on the edge of his bed and carefully rested his head in his hands as he attempted to get the room to stop spinning.

A knock sounded from his door.

“Lance? Can I come in?” It was Keith. Vaguely, Lance recalled their plan to hang out today, though it was buried deep in his subconscious, behind the hammer that was currently slamming against his skull.

“Yeah.” Lance looked up only slightly as the door was opened. Keith walked in before freezing after a couple steps, staring at Lance.

“You’re naked.” Keith stated, blinking stupidly.

Lance blearily looked at him before glancing down. He was wearing only a towel. That’s embarrassing.

“Sorry.” Lance mumbled, standing and slowly walking towards his dresser.

Keith looked concerned as he closed Lance’s door, stepping into the room properly. “Are you okay?” He raised a hand towards Lance as if to steady him, though he was definitely too far away to do that. Unless Lance’s depth perception had suddenly gone to shit, which was just as likely.

“Yeah, I’m just kinda dizzy.” After weakly tugging at the handles on the dresser and deeming that too much effort, Lance made his way back over to Keith. He grabbing a shirt that laid on the bed only a step away from him. He hadn’t noticed it before.

Lance stumbled, and Keith launched to grab a hold of him. “You’re obviously not okay.” Keith stated bluntly, lowering Lance onto the bed, before gently feeling his forehead.

“You’re hot.” Keith mumbled, worry heavily lacing his voice.

“Thank you.” Lance winked jokingly, before cringing at the pang it sent through his head.

“Lie down.” Keith commanded softly, helping Lance get undercover in the bed. With a short command to stay put, Keith left to get something from the kitchen.

A couple minutes later, which felt like a few seconds to Lance, Keith returned with an armful of things. He had a wet towel, ice pack, thermometer, bottle of advil, glass of water, and granola bar. Lance would have made fun of him for over preparing if he wasn’t feeling so shitty.

“I’m still naked you know.” Lance felt the need to sleepily point out as Keith grabbed two pills from the Aspirin bottle.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure no one lifts the covers.” Keith answered, completely serious. He helped Lance take the medicine, then gently placed the wet towel on Lance’s forehead.

“So you’ll stay with me?” Lance stared at Keith, his eyes uncomprehending.

“Of course I will.” Keith grabbed Lance’s hand and kissed if gently. This seemed to shock Keith himself more than Lance as he immediately dropped his hand. As for Lance, he was too out of it to react other than a soft smile.

“Thank you.”

~~~

Keith was lounging on his couch with his legs propped up on the coffee table when Lance barged through the door. It was times like these that Keith was glad he didn’t have any roommates.

When Lance noticed Keith, he made a beeline towards the couch and flopped onto it, leaning way too far into Keith’s personal space. Lance didn’t seem to care, and, to be honest, Keith didn’t mind either.

“Keith!” Lance greeted cheerfully, “Watch Tangled with me!”

Lance draped himself over Keith’s shoulders and gazed at Keith with wide sparkling eyes.

Keith sighed and turned his attention away from the laptop he was typing on. He had an essay for Sociology due at 11:59, and he only had one page of five done. “Why?”

“Because Flynn is hot.” Lance stated bluntly.

Keith shook his head in exasperation, but still allowed a small smile to surface. “I meant why with me? Was Hunk busy?”

Lance peeled himself off Keith and sat facing him on the couch, face confused, “What do you mean? You’re the first person I’ve asked. I came straight here after my Psych class.”

Keith felt his face flush and quickly turned his head back towards his laptop, hoping Lance didn’t notice. From Lance’s lack of commentary on it, Keith assumed he didn’t.

Staring at his essay, Keith tried to decide what to do. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind procrastinating more if it meant he got to spend time with Lance.

So he what if he had a crush. Sue him. He could finish the essay later.

“Sure, I don’t mind.” Keith said quietly, shaking his head a bit. Closing his laptop, he set it on the coffee table and faced Lance. “Did you bring it?”

Lance, who had been staring at him expectantly, started to bounce on the couch in excitement. “Of course I did!” He leaned down into the backpack he had unceremoniously dumped on the floor upon his arrival and pulled out a DVD of Tangled. Lance handed it to Keith and stood up enthusiastically. “You set up the DVD, and I’ll make popcorn!”

Keith eyebrows furrowed as Lance walked into the kitchen. He blinked at the DVD in his hands, then called, “How did you know I had popcorn?”

“Because you’ve had this same box of popcorn packets since you moved in, like, a year ago?”

“Because it tastes like cardboard.” Keith said under his breath.

“Not true!” Lance screeched back.

A few hours later, when Shiro stopped by to drop off Keith’s Sociology textbook, he was greeted by a surprising scene.

Keith and Lance were asleep together on the couch, both leaning into one another in their sitting positions. Lance’s head was resting on Keith’s shoulder and Keith head was gently set on top of Lance’s.

Shiro almost cooed at the scene but managed to restrain himself. He tiptoed quietly and set the book on Keith’s coffee table, next to an untouched bowl of popcorn.

And if Shiro took a picture before he left, well that was for him to know.

~

About three weeks later, Keith was sitting in Lance’s bed, prepped up against the headboard. His arms were wrapped firmly around Lance, who was leaning back into him, their heads pressed against each other.

They were watching a movie on Keith’s laptop, some romcom Netflix original, when a knock sounded on Lance’s door.

“Yeah?” Lance called, not moving from his position.

The door opened to reveal one of Lance’s roommates, who stuck his head in, “Hey, can I borrow your Government textbook?”

Lance lazily pointed at the textbook on the ground, before burrowing his hand back under the covers.

His roommate said a quick thank you as he walked into the room and picked the book up off the floor. As he was heading out he casually threw over his shoulder, “Congrats by the way. I didn’t know you two were dating.”

Lance’s roommate left the room, leaving a tense environment that conflicted the comfortable one he’d walked in one. Lance quietly paused the movie and sat in the silence for a moment.

“ _Are_ we dating?” He finally said, his voice cutting through the uneasy air.

Keith looked at their position and seemed to realize something for the first time. “I think we are?”

They stared at each other for a solid minute before Lance hesitantly said, “I wouldn’t mind if we were?”

Keith’s shoulders seemed to lose some of their tension as he reached out and grabbed Lance’s hand. He softly kissed it, making Lance’s insides turn to mush. “I definitely wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay.” Lance said, a goofy smile taking over his features.

They leaned back into their previous positions, their fingers now intertwined, and Keith reached out and pressed play on the movie.

After a couple moments of silence, Lance quickly paused the movie, before sitting up and facing Keith. “This means you’re my boyfriend now, right?”

Keith didn’t say anything, instead choosing to gently grab Lance’s face and pull him into a kiss.

~

(“So you are right?”  
“ _Yes_ , Lance.”) 

**Author's Note:**

> (When Shiro found out they were dating, he cried. But you didn't hear it from me.)
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :)


End file.
